I usually don’t say stuff like this but killing animals for human consumption in 2006 is backward and unenlightened. It is a practice based in ignorance and self-indulgence. I hypothesize that if civilized people had no Tyson Foods or McDonald’s or commercial fishing then they would not be out in full-force killing and rendering cows and pigs and fish in their spare time. This is another example of where our economic model benefits anachronistic practices. People used to kill cows for food. Then they moved to the city. Then someone else had to kill cows for food. Then we had Upton Sinclair. Then we had World War II. Then we had civil rights. Then we had Internet. We have all of this change in the daily lives of people but they are so far removed from the task that is necessary to put a steak on their plate that that they misperceive, poorly perceive or completely ignore it and how it might conflict with their post-modern values and ethics. Hence, it is unenlightened. If there were no commercial slaughtering businesses such as Tyson Foods then this practice would have fallen away a long time ago.